Wednesday, June 21, 2017

Taking Stock: North Coast Business Scene May 2017

Our absence from blogging for a portion of June has us playing a little bit of catch up on some of our regular features, with our review of the city's business scene a little behind schedule for this month.

Among some of the notes observed for the month of May is the success of the Thrive North business competition and the top billing for a local entrepreneur, news from City owned CityWest with big plans for fibre infrastructure in Prince Rupert and some background on the Annual Public Meeting for the Prince Rupert based financial service Northern Savings.

Some of our observations on the Commercial and economic scene in the region for May can be found below:

May

The summer boating season is underway and for the city's new commercial venture of the Cow Bay Marina the opportunity to attract pleasure boats travelling up and down the coast is now in full swing. Though staffing requirements for the Cow Bay facility seem to have been re-evaluated for the year, with the cancellation of two summer intern positions at the dock.

City Council's interest in getting a handle on some of the downtown eyesores continued into May with Councillor Cunningham once again putting the spotlight on some of the unsightly buildings of the downtown core.

A local art gallery is set to be on the move as the Port of Prince Rupert moves forward with its Cow Bay plans.

With Highway 16 reconstruction taking place at Rainbow Summit, CityWest had to make some geographical changes to their fibre line connecting Prince Rupert to Terrace.

Prince Rupert based Northern Savings hosted their Annual General Meetings through the month of May, providing some background to the financial institutions work over the last year.  The Northwest financial service also outlined some of the precautions it has taken towards security for their computer systems and had some words of advice for residents of the region, 

Connecting Prince Rupert to Ketchikan was a theme for a delegation from the North Coast who attended a Chamber of Commerce function in the Alaska city.

The nature of change to the City's Airport Board make up a good portion of the weekly paper's editorial page contributions in May.

The City of Terrace took to the streets in May, looking to gauge the climate for business opportunities in the region.

Travelling to Prince Rupert on the rails is on the increase, as VIA Rail takes note of a burst in ridership on the Skeena from 2016, with hopes that 2017 provides for a similar boost in travel to the city.

The popular Thrive North competition was hosted at the North Coast Convention Centre this year, with a strong contingent of Prince Rupert entrepreneurs taking part in the competition. When the competition was over, Prince Rupert's Marci Leblanc was 10,000 dollars richer for her efforts.


Prince Rupert residents heard news of some service improvements in the works from the city owned telecommunication company CityWest, as company officials outlined their plans for a 10 million dollar investment in fibre infrastructure in the city.

One of the city's hotel complexes was damaged by fire in late May, with a number of rooms at the Parkside Resort Motel suffering water and fire damage.

You can keep up to date on the ebb and flow of the Prince Rupert commercial scene through 2017 from our Taking Stock tracker archive which can be reviewed here.

A full review of the the trends and developments in business for 2017 can be found on our Commercial Sector archive page here.

 We imagine we probably have missed a few here or there, so if you know of a business having opened, or seen the Going out of business sign appear somewhere in the area, drop us a line at our email account of northcoastreviewpr@yahoo.ca

Or send us a short message through our twitter feed of @CharlesHays

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